UCF forum stirs protest, passion

Policymakers, experts and students talk about immigration reform and borders.

October 10, 2006|By VICtor Manuel Ramos, Sentinel Staff Writer

Hundreds of Central Florida residents, many of them college students, weighed in Monday during a daylong session at the University of Central Florida on one of the most divisive political questions of the day:

Should the U.S. open its borders or shut its doors to many immigrants?

The answers reflected the same differences over enforcement and legalization that are behind a stalemate in Congress.

When U.S. Reps. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, and Ric Keller, R-Orlando, prepared to make the case for a fenced border and stricter enforcement, activists from Students for a Democratic Society carried worn-out gloves from farmworkers to the stage -- making a symbolic statement about the contributions of those immigrants.

"These are the people who are the backbone of our country," said Pat DeCarlo, 21, a UCF student who is an activist with the group. "We wanted to use our right to freedom of speech to say that we don't want them exploited and forgotten."

Most of the policymakers, academics and experts at the forum fell somewhere in between those two options. The symposium, attended by more than 400 people, was held at the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government at UCF.

The gathering followed the recent approval of thousands of miles of fencing along the border with Mexico, the country that contributes most immigrants to the United States.

That set the stage for the most highly attended session of the day, where Mexico Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Geronimo Gutierrez fielded questions about his country's efforts toward self-reliance and the effect of trade agreements in pushing people out of his country.

Gutierrez emphasized that Mexico is not proud of losing many of its nationals and said that it does not encourage people to come to the United States. But he also stated that global economic forces create the flow of migrants, while many willing workers have no legal mechanism to enter the U.S.

"Mexicans are not born with a genetic chip implanted that tells them `Let's migrate to the United States,' " said Gutierrez, explaining that a struggle for survival drives whole families to cross the dangerous Sonoran Desert at the risk of losing their lives. "If there is a legal avenue, they will use it. And the question is, are there enough legal avenues?"

U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, who co-authored an amended Senate bill that sought to legalize some immigrant workers and their families, said he is hopeful that when Congress reconvenes after the election it will make new efforts to bridge the differences between the two chambers.

"We are dealing with a broken system," Martinez said. "The best way to do this is to establish a legal guest-worker system, and we set the ground rules."

Noah Pickus, associate director of Duke University's Kenan Institute of Ethics in Durham, N.C., told the afternoon crowd that the debate underscores deeper issues about how to balance the rule of law with human rights in an increasingly global economy.

"It's a story that goes beyond legal and illegal," Pickus said. "We increasingly live in a global network, in a global neighborhood.

"Immigration has become the human face to this phenomenon of transience, " he said.

Another local speaker, Bishop Thomas Wenski of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando, said immigrants contribute with work and capital, and also help to create a pluralistic society.

"The immigrants, legal and illegal, can be a powerful force for the renewal of American culture, because they believe in the American dream," Wenski said. "They can serve as an antidote to the self-absorbed it's-all-about-me culture that has invaded many."

Frey, whose annual symposium tackles current political issues, said the gathering did not aim to find a quick-fix solution but to expose students and others in the community to "really tough issues that the country has to face."

Winrich Cruz, a UCF political-science student who is an American of Filipino ancestry, told panelists that he would like to see the debate shift to finding a global solution for all who want to become part of U.S. society.

"I just want people to be able to wait in line," said Cruz, 21, "like my parents did."